The last “episode,” Clara tells us, ended with Lewis and Carl traveling to some small town in Quebec and spending what would be, to me, a lot of money.
“But Lewis says the drugs they have now are so much better than in the old days.”
Lewis also confided in Clara that Wesley is spending at least some of his time in their parents’ old house, now that they’re gone.
“I don’t think Lewis is too happy about that,” Clara says. “She’s afraid it’ll make him get into old habits.” Like going nuts, I guess. “But they left the house to Alicia, and she didn’t seem to mind him staying over.
“It probably passes to Lewis and Carl now, so I don’t know what’s going to happen. Lewis said they might move back in, try to fix the place up. It’s gotten pretty run down.”
Run down, I’m thinking, is a relative term.
We’re nearing the Prestwould, where I’ll drop Clara off and Kate will retrieve her car, when I ask Clara about Lewis.
“Oh,” she says, “Lewis is Lewis. Harper always called her his rock, the one he could depend on.”
Lewis was the only one of the three who went what you might call the traditional West End route. From what I’ve seen of some of these tapped-out old Richmond families, one out of three ain’t bad.
She graduated in four years from Sweet Briar and married Carl. They have a son who’s just gotten into law school at the University of Virginia, a daughter at Sweet Briar and a younger son still at home.
“Wonderful kids,” Clara says. “Wonderful family, really. Simone was so proud of them. They’re members of the Quarry, too, although I don’t see them as much as I used to.”
I walk Clara up the steps to the front door, and she gives me a peck on the cheek.
“You know,” she says, looking down at Kate, who’s waiting for me to take her around back to her car, “what was good once can be good again. Broke doesn’t have to stay broke.”
“Maybe” is about as far as I’m willing to take that one.
“Well,” Kate says, after I’ve driven her around to the back parking lot and gallantly open her driver’s side door for her, “thanks for the ride . . . and all.”
“And all? That’s a pretty paltry phrase for this afternoon’s festivities.”
“Hah,” she says. It sounds like something between a snort and a laugh. “Festivities. I like that.”
“You certainly seemed to.”
“I was faking it.”
It’s time for my own “hah.” The former Kate Black, perhaps soon to be the former Kate Ellis, could fake a lot of things—interest in my stories of ill-fated drug deals, tolerance for my perambulations from the straight and narrow, my old Oregon Hill friends, an admiration for my crumbling physique.
What she could not and cannot fake is an orgasm. I remind her of that, and she blushes, pretty much the same way she blushes when she is being vigorously entertained by Mr. Johnson and can’t hide it.
“Well,” she says, “so I’m a slut.”
She gives me a kiss, a real one with all the bells and whistles.
As she reaches to unlock her car door, she says, “But this was an aberration, an anomaly, a one-night—or afternoon—stand. You’re a bad habit I can’t afford to get hooked on again.”
OK. Fair enough.
“But it was good,” she concedes, just before she shuts the door on our little time-out from divorce.
Back at the paper, I do a little electronic snooping and get to read Baer’s story on the funeral. He wasn’t invited to Chez Witt, of course, but he’s done a passable job of catching what he would call the zeitgeist. I remember the time Sally called him on that one when he used it in print, in a story about the watermelon festival in Carytown.
“Shit, Mark,” she said, “why don’t you just come right out and tell them how much smarter you are than they are? People love to be talked down to. Save ‘zeitgeist’ until you get that job at the Post. ‘Zeitgeist’ and ‘watermelon’ do not belong in the same
“But Lewis says the drugs they have now are so much better than in the old days.”
Lewis also confided in Clara that Wesley is spending at least some of his time in their parents’ old house, now that they’re gone.
“I don’t think Lewis is too happy about that,” Clara says. “She’s afraid it’ll make him get into old habits.” Like going nuts, I guess. “But they left the house to Alicia, and she didn’t seem to mind him staying over.
“It probably passes to Lewis and Carl now, so I don’t know what’s going to happen. Lewis said they might move back in, try to fix the place up. It’s gotten pretty run down.”
Run down, I’m thinking, is a relative term.
We’re nearing the Prestwould, where I’ll drop Clara off and Kate will retrieve her car, when I ask Clara about Lewis.
“Oh,” she says, “Lewis is Lewis. Harper always called her his rock, the one he could depend on.”
Lewis was the only one of the three who went what you might call the traditional West End route. From what I’ve seen of some of these tapped-out old Richmond families, one out of three ain’t bad.
She graduated in four years from Sweet Briar and married Carl. They have a son who’s just gotten into law school at the University of Virginia, a daughter at Sweet Briar and a younger son still at home.
“Wonderful kids,” Clara says. “Wonderful family, really. Simone was so proud of them. They’re members of the Quarry, too, although I don’t see them as much as I used to.”
I walk Clara up the steps to the front door, and she gives me a peck on the cheek.
“You know,” she says, looking down at Kate, who’s waiting for me to take her around back to her car, “what was good once can be good again. Broke doesn’t have to stay broke.”
“Maybe” is about as far as I’m willing to take that one.
“Well,” Kate says, after I’ve driven her around to the back parking lot and gallantly open her driver’s side door for her, “thanks for the ride . . . and all.”
“And all? That’s a pretty paltry phrase for this afternoon’s festivities.”
“Hah,” she says. It sounds like something between a snort and a laugh. “Festivities. I like that.”
“You certainly seemed to.”
“I was faking it.”
It’s time for my own “hah.” The former Kate Black, perhaps soon to be the former Kate Ellis, could fake a lot of things—interest in my stories of ill-fated drug deals, tolerance for my perambulations from the straight and narrow, my old Oregon Hill friends, an admiration for my crumbling physique.
What she could not and cannot fake is an orgasm. I remind her of that, and she blushes, pretty much the same way she blushes when she is being vigorously entertained by Mr. Johnson and can’t hide it.
“Well,” she says, “so I’m a slut.”
She gives me a kiss, a real one with all the bells and whistles.
As she reaches to unlock her car door, she says, “But this was an aberration, an anomaly, a one-night—or afternoon—stand. You’re a bad habit I can’t afford to get hooked on again.”
OK. Fair enough.
“But it was good,” she concedes, just before she shuts the door on our little time-out from divorce.
Back at the paper, I do a little electronic snooping and get to read Baer’s story on the funeral. He wasn’t invited to Chez Witt, of course, but he’s done a passable job of catching what he would call the zeitgeist. I remember the time Sally called him on that one when he used it in print, in a story about the watermelon festival in Carytown.
“Shit, Mark,” she said, “why don’t you just come right out and tell them how much smarter you are than they are? People love to be talked down to. Save ‘zeitgeist’ until you get that job at the Post. ‘Zeitgeist’ and ‘watermelon’ do not belong in the same
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